Inquests & Public Inquiries
Hamish regularly appears at both Pre-inquest Review and Inquest hearings, including Article 2 Inquests, for healthcare providers, public bodies, and companies. Recent examples of Hamish’s work include:
- PB Inquest (Woking Coroners’ Court, January 2023): Acting for council adult social services in relation to the death of a man with motor-neurone disease who was found to be malnourished. Despite a conclusion of neglect in the council’s own Section 42 safeguarding report, the Coroner accepted Hamish’s submissions distinguishing the test for neglect in a Section 42 report and for a finding in a Coroners’ Court. No finding of neglect was accordingly made.
- KB Inquest (Reading Coroners’ Court, January 2023): Acting for the care home in relation to the death of a resident who had developed aspiration pneumonia after PEG feeding.
- LB Inquest (Woking Coroners’ Court, December 2022): Acting for a council-run supported housing provider after the death of a resident by drug overdose.
Hamish also gained wide-ranging experience of this area whilst undertaking pupillage with Farrah Mauladad KC, assisting on a variety of cases including:
- Preparing written submissions to the coroner in relation to whether the procedural obligation under Article 2 was triggered. The inquest concerned a mentally ill man who had died whilst being restrained by security guards after he had started assaulting members of the public.
- Aiding preparations for an inquest into the death of a young woman who died from a drug overdose. Farrah Mauladad KC represented the therapist who last saw her before she died.
- Aiding preparations for an inquest into the suicide of a woman directly after she had just visited a counselling service.
Selected Cases
View full profile »Awards
- Buchanan Prize for outstanding performance on the BPTC (Lincoln’s Inn, 2020)
- Advocacy Scholarship (BPP, 2019)
- Tancred Scholarship (Lincoln’s Inn, 2019)
- Winner, the Crowther Shield for public speaking (Lincoln’s Inn, 2019)
- Winner, the Crown Office Mooting Competition (2018)
- The Janet Quigley Prize for Middle English studies (Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, 2016)
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Qualifications
- BPTC (Outstanding), BPP
- GDL (Distinction), City University
- English Language & Literature (First Class), University of Oxford
